Religious Men Falter In Teen Poll

RELIGION

May 7, 1994|By GEORGE H. GALLUP Jr. and ROBERT BEZILLA and Princeton Religion Research Center

Who do adults admire the most? Billy Graham, Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa generally place high on their lists.

But while Mother Teresa also stands tall with teen-agers, who rated her third most-admired person this year, religious men have not fared so well.

John Paul II, for example, has not been chosen by teens since 1989. Even though he visited Denver in 1993 to address American Catholic youth, the pope was not spontaneously mentioned this year among the men teen-agers most admire. And despite his perennial place on the adults' list, Billy Graham has never ranked high with the teens.

In the fall of 1993, the Gallup Youth Survey asked teens to rate several prominent people as role models. The pope did well on this test, with most teens saying he is either an excellent (25 percent) or good (36 percent) role model.

Just 30 percent considered Billy Graham an excellent or good role model, 45 percent rate him only fair or poor, and 25 percent were not even able to make a judgment.

Evangelist Pat Robertson, despite his political prominence in recent years, appears to be largely unknown to teens, with 44 percent unable to rate him as a role model. Among those who did, he was twice as likely to get a fair or poor rating (37 percent) as an excellent or good one (19 percent).

Robertson lags behind both Ross Perot and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as a role model.

The pope is in a statistical tie with movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger as a role model for teens. Basketball player Charles Barkley, who has gone on record as saying he does not want to be a role model for young people, and President Bill Clinton, who undoubtedly does want to be one, both outpoll Billy Graham.

Pope John Paul II got positive ratings from 76 percent of teen Catholics, compared to 59 percent of Protestants. Graham was rated positively by 38 percent of Protestant teens, and by 26 percent of Catholics. For Robertson, 25 percent Protestants gave positive grades, compared to 23 percent of Catholics.

Parents probably can stop worrying that their teen-agers will want to emulate pop star Madonna. Most teens (72 percent) consider Madonna a poor role model for people their age. Only one young person in 10 considers her an excellent (4 percent) or good (7 percent) role model.

Those who worry that the current young generation is too materialistic may take comfort in the finding that three teens in four reject entrepreneur Donald Trump as a potential role model.

This survey is based on telephone interviews with 512 teen-agers around the nation, ages 13 through 17, conducted during the period of July to October 1993, with a margin of error of four percentage points in either direction.